An analysis of Polyeucte by Pierre Corneille reveals that the presence of God's grace is evidently alive and can be seen in the character's actions and choices throughout the play . At the beginning of the work, the main character Polyeucte is immediately faced with the dilemma: to be baptized or not to be baptized. On the one hand, he fears that his wife, who is not Christian, will be angry with him for having gone through with the baptism. On the other hand, his friend Nearchus urges him to become a Christian as soon as possible. The question then becomes how the role of grace influences not only Polyeucte's actions but all of the play's main characters. Grace is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as “undeserved divine assistance given to human beings for their regeneration or sanctification.” This leads us to try to understand where grace is present in the work. A brief summary of Polyeucte begins in the first act, where Paulina, Polyeucte's wife, confesses that she was in love with a man named Severus before marrying Polyeucte. Since then Paulina has been convinced that Severus died in battle; however his father, Felix, is introduced into the play and announces that Severus is alive and is scary because he has come to seek revenge against him because he rejected Severus Paulina's hand in marriage. Polyeucte and his friend Nearchus are baptized and become Christians and when Felix learns of this he immediately puts Nearchus to death to instill fear in Polyeucte and force him to recant. Paulina begs her father not to put Polyeucte to death, but her father is afraid that Severus is plotting something against him and executes Polyeucte. Soon after the moment Polyeucte becomes a martyr, Paulina converts to Christianity and Felix f...... middle of paper ......men did not need grace and that humans were predestined to be saved or not to be saved. They had no choice in what their fate would be, so grace played no role in their lives. The nonexistence of grace is seen in Corneille's counterpart in this period in the French theater, Jean Racine. Comparing both of their famous plays, Polyeucte, with Jean Racine's Phaedra, the differences are clearly evident in the beliefs and ideals of both playwrights. The result of this was the education of playwrights and the culture of the society around them as they grew up. The role of Racine's Jansenist beliefs stems directly from his studies in Port Royal, which was ruled by Jansenists. In contrast Corneille grew up surrounded by the Jesuit belief, so this tells us the main difference between the two. The absence of grace in Racine's Phaedra compared to Corneille's Polyeucte is enormous.